Solar symbol
A solar symbol is a symbol representing the Sun. Common solar symbols include circles (with or without rays), crosses, and spirals. In religious iconography, personifications of the Sun or solar attributes are often indicated by means of a halo or a radiate crown.
When the systematic study of comparative mythology first became popular in the 19th century, scholarly opinion tended to over-interpret historical myths and iconography in terms of "solar symbolism". This was especially the case with
Solar disk
The basic element of most solar symbols is the circular solar disk.
The disk can be modified in various ways, notably by adding rays (found in the Bronze Age in Egyptian depictions of Aten) or a cross. In the ancient Near East, the solar disk could also be modified by addition of the Uraeus (rearing cobra), and in ancient Mesopotamia it was shown with wings.
Bronze Age writing
Egyptian hieroglyphs have a large inventory of solar symbolism because of the central position of solar deities (Ra, Horus, Aten etc.) in ancient Egyptian religion.
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The "Sun" logogram in early
Classical era
In the Greek and European world, until approximately the 16th century, the astrological symbol for the Sun was a disk with a single ray, (U+1F71A 🜚 ALCHEMICAL SYMBOL FOR GOLD). This is the form, for example, in Johannes Kamateros' 12th century Compendium of Astrology.[4]
Astronomical symbol
The modern
Rayed depictions
A circular disk with alternating triangular and wavy rays emanating from it is a frequent symbol or artistic depiction of the sun.
Antiquity
The ancient Mesopotamian "star of Shamash" could be represented with either eight wavy rays, or with four wavy and four triangular rays.
The Vergina Sun (also known as the Star of Vergina, Macedonian Star, or Argead Star) is a rayed solar symbol appearing in ancient Greek art from the 6th to 2nd centuries BC. The Vergina Sun appears in art variously with sixteen, twelve, or eight triangular rays.
Bianchini's planisphere, produced in the 2nd century,[5] has a circlet with rays radiating from it.[6]
Sun with face
The iconographic tradition of depicting the Sun with rays and with a
Sunburst
The sunburst was the badge of king Edward III of England, and has thus become the badge of office of Windsor Herald.
Modern pictogram
The modern pictogram representing the Sun as a circle with rays, often eight in number (indicated by either straight lines or triangles; Unicode
Two pictograms resembling the Sun with rays are used to represent the settings of luminance in display devices. They have been encoded in Unicode since version 6.0 in the Miscellaneous Symbols and Pictographs block under U+1505 as "low brightness symbol" (🔅) and U+1F506 as "high brightness symbol" (🔆).[9]
Crosses
The "
The
Some
The
The "
The "Kolovrat", or in Polish Słoneczko, represents the Sun in Slavic neopaganism.
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Sun cross form of swastika, official symbol of the German Faith Movement (1934–1945)
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Slavic Kolovrat/Słoneczko
Modern flags and emblems
Official insignia which incorporate rayed solar symbols include the flag of Uruguay, the flag of Kiribati, some versions of the flag of Argentina, the Irish Defence Forces cap badge, and the 1959–1965 coat of arms of Iraq.
The depictions of the sun on the flags of the Republic of China (Taiwan), Kazakhstan, Kurdistan, the Brazilian state of Pernambuco, and Nepal have only straight (triangular) rays; that of Kyrgyzstan has only curvy rays; while that of the Philippines has short diverging rays grouped into threes.
Another rayed form of the sun has simple radial lines dividing the background into two colors, as in the military flags of Japan and the flag of North Macedonia, and in the top parts of the flags of Tibet and Arizona.
The
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Flag of Argentina
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Flag of Arizona (USA)
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Flag of the Republic of China (Taiwan)
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Flag of the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force
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Flag of Kazakhstan
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Flag of Kiribati
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Flag of Kurdistan
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Flag of Nepal
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Flag of New Mexico (USA)
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Flag of North Macedonia
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Flag of the Philippines
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Flag of Tibet
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Flag of Uruguay
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Flag of Pernambuco (Brazil)
Code points in Unicode
Preview | ☉ | ☀ | ☼ | 🜨 | 🌣 | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Unicode name | SUN | BLACK SUN WITH RAYS | WHITE SUN WITH RAYS | ALCHEMICAL SYMBOL FOR VERDIGRIS | WHITE SUN | |||||
Encodings | decimal | hex | dec | hex | dec | hex | dec | hex | dec | hex |
Unicode | 9737 | U+2609 | 9728 | U+2600 | 9788 | U+263C | 128808 | U+1F728 | 127779 | U+1F323 |
UTF-8 | 226 152 137 | E2 98 89 | 226 152 128 | E2 98 80 | 226 152 188 | E2 98 BC | 240 159 156 168 | F0 9F 9C A8 | 240 159 140 163 | F0 9F 8C A3 |
UTF-16 | 9737 | 2609 | 9728 | 2600 | 9788 | 263C | 55357 57128 | D83D DF28 | 55356 57123 | D83C DF23 |
Numeric character reference | ☉ |
☉ |
☀ |
☀ |
☼ |
☼ |
🜨 |
🜨 |
🌣 |
🌣 |
Preview | 🌞 | 🔆 | 🜚 | ⽇ | 𓇴 | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Unicode name | SUN WITH FACE | HIGH BRIGHTNESS SYMBOL | ALCHEMICAL SYMBOL FOR GOLD | KANGXI RADICAL SUN | SUN WITH URAEUS | |||||
Encodings | decimal | hex | dec | hex | dec | hex | dec | hex | dec | hex |
Unicode | 127774 | U+1F31E | 128262 | U+1F506 | 128794 | U+1F71A | 12103 | U+2F47 | 78324 | U+131F4 |
UTF-8 | 240 159 140 158 | F0 9F 8C 9E | 240 159 148 134 | F0 9F 94 86 | 240 159 156 154 | F0 9F 9C 9A | 226 189 135 | E2 BD 87 | 240 147 135 180 | F0 93 87 B4 |
UTF-16 | 55356 57118 | D83C DF1E | 55357 56582 | D83D DD06 | 55357 57114 | D83D DF1A | 12103 | 2F47 | 55308 56820 | D80C DDF4 |
Numeric character reference | 🌞 |
🌞 |
🔆 |
🔆 |
🜚 |
🜚 |
⽇ |
⽇ |
𓇴 |
𓇴 |
U+2299 ⊙ CIRCLED DOT OPERATOR
See also
- Astrological symbols – Symbols denoting astrological concepts
- Astronomical symbols – Symbols in astronomy
- Blue Sky with a White Sun – National emblem of the Republic of China
- Beaivi – Sami sun-deity, name of sun in Sami
- Black Sun (symbol) – Neo-Nazi and esoteric symbol
- Lauburu – Basque cross
- Monad (Greek philosophy) – Philosophical concept of a most basic substance, or supreme being
- Self in Jungian psychology – Psychological concept
- Solar deity – Sky deity who represents the Sun
- The Sun in culture – Depictions of the Sun in culture
- Sun (heraldry) – Symbolic form used in heraldry
- Sun of May – National emblem of Argentina and Uruguay
- Winged sun – Symbol of divinity, royalty and power
Notes
- ^ Since at least 1988, the International Astronomical Union has deprecated use of planetary symbols in journal articles.The IAU Style Manual (PDF). The International Astrophysical Union. 1989. p. 27. Archived (PDF) from the original on June 21, 2018. Retrieved August 20, 2018.
References
- ISBN 978-0-520-02404-5.. See also R. F. Littledale, "The Oxford Solar Myth, A Contribution to Comparative Mythology" in: Echoes from Kottabos, London (1906), 279–290 for a satire on this effect.
- astral mythology.
- ISBN 0-87169-233-3.
- ISBN 9780871690487.
- ^ "Bianchini's planisphere". Florence, Italy: Istituto e Museo di Storia della Scienza (Institute and Museum of the History of Science). Retrieved 2010-03-17.
- Bibcode:1934Obs....57..238M.
- .
- ^ Daniel Engber, Who Made That Weather Icon?, New York Times, 23 May 2013.
- ^ "Miscellaneous Symbols and Pictographs" (PDF). Unicode Consortium. 2023.
- Nebra sky diskexhibition site (landesmuseum-fuer-vorgeschichte-halle.de)
- ^ Айк Демоян «Армянские национальные символы» = «Հայկական ազգային խորհրդանշաններ». — Ереван: «Пюник», 2013.
- "Մամլո հաղորդագրություն - "Շուշիի ազատագրման 20-ամյակ" (ոսկի) [News release - A golden coin dedicated o the 20th anniversary of the Liberation of Shushi]" (PDF). Central Bank of Armenia. 24 January 2012. Archived from the original (PDF) on 3 October 2013. Retrieved 4 October 2013. see the image of the coin
- "Հայաստանի Հանրապետության Կառավարության 2002 Թվականի Հունվարի 7-ի N 6 Որոշման Մեջ Փոփոխություններ Կատարելու Մասին". Armenian Legal Information System. 18 April 2012. Retrieved 4 October 2013., see the logo of the Customs Service of Armenia
- The Council of the city Yerevan, the seal of Yerevan, 2010, see the logo of Yerevan
- Ministry of Justice of RA, about the medals and decorations, 2007
- The government of Armenia, symbol of the cooperation «Armenia-Diaspora» Archived 2013-09-27 at the Wayback Machine, 2012
- Ministry of Emergency Situations, about the medals and decorations, 2011, see the symbol of the cooperation «Armenia-Diaspora»
- Central Bank of Armenia, coin «15-years of liberation of Shushi», 2007, see the image of the coin
- OCLC 1124412910.
- OCLC 1089555543.
- ^ ISBN 0-81-473124-4.
External links
- Symbols.com list and description of sun symbols (archived 31 October 2010)
- Origins and Meanings of the Eight-point Star. Archived 2010-08-19 at the Wayback Machine.